Look, I’m sure when and if these films get made they will be ‘good’. Good enough. They’ll segue into the original films competently enough, they’ll have the odd bravura scene of stunning sfx. But deep down, we all know The Hobbit lucked out when Guillermo took this on. I can’t think of a more perfect choice of director ticking all three boxes of: a) an innate understanding of horror & fantasy b) soulful reverence to the source material and c) artistic vision; and as much as I don’t want to put a dampener on where things go from here, I can’t help it either, because sadly you won’t get that combination again. Two out of the three, maybe. Two & a half, at a push.As for the replacements being touted? Jackson, on present form I’m not convinced could match his trilogy, nor would he want to as he's said countless times he sees no satisfaction in competing with himself. Cuaron, a huge talent in his own right, should not become "second dibbs" and as a close friend of Del Toro would forever be a reminder of the man he had replaced; nor is he, first and foremost, a fantasy director. And Scott? He’s got the minor matter of an Alien prequel to attend to in case anyone’s forgotten, or hasn’t recently made a trip out to the multiplex to sit through Robin Hood …My money goes on Raimi. His visual style of late, especially in the phenomenally rewatchable Drag Me To Hell reminds me more of earlier Peter Jackson than anything: the gross-out horror, askew camera angles, wondrously OTT theatrics. He’d nail the Mirkwood spiders and give the movies ample scares. He’s also a director who, for the most part (Spidey 3, excepted) balances character and big spectacle action well. So perhaps, (i.e: a BIG perhaps, and still one hoping that McGuire gets nowhere near the Bilbo gig) what with the unhappy severance from the Spiderman franchise, this could be his triumphant return to the big blockbuster arena? We shall see.For all the inevitable conjecture about who’ll eventually take over, I’d also like to celebrate the simple fact of Guillermo’s artistic vistas widening overnight. That’s a massive plus for all of us. It means that he’ll be free to pursue the smaller scale projects AND the bigger ones, the intimate and the outrageous, the Lovecraft and the madness, and I’ll be cheering him on with the certainty I know him slightly better than before the Hobbit debacle, and I’ll tell you why: A couple of months (or few pages back) ago, I made a (slightly) narky post likening the interminable delays to Groundhog day. I wasn’t fully up to speed with the MGM situation either, so when Guillermo showed up in the thread, I could have reasonably expected a tongue-lashing for a bout of fanboy petulance, not least for the factual inaccuracies. Instead, GDT expressed his empathy. His empathy with us, when the one who deserved it most was him. Might seem trivial, but I’ll always remember that as the mark of the man, and in many ways because of it, I’ll always wish him ten times more love, best wishes ( & empathy) in future personal projects we all know will be weird wonderful expressions of that unique creative mind. Here’s to hoping that creature notebook of his is soon bursting at the seams again. Heres’s to raising up the glass. And here’s to saying without a word of dewy eyed hyperbole The Hobbit just lost a towering talent - and soul. Gods (and monsters) bless him in everything he does.Damien, England.